Recent Interviews
Five Decades in the Making: Why It Took Congress So Long to Act on Climate
The Senate bill avoided the political pitfalls of past legislative attempts by offering only incentives to cut climate pollution, not taxes. In 1969, President Richard Nixon’s adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memo describing a startling…
A closer look at Manchin’s asks on permitting
Manchin’s asks: The legislative agreement between Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for Congress to take up “comprehensive” permitting reform in a bill separate from their reconciliation deal…
Biden’s climate agenda faces yet another obstacle: Kyrsten Sinema
The most ambitious attempt yet to pass climate legislation in the US may have surprisingly won the crucial backing of a senator who owns a coal company. Now it faces a further, deeply ironic, obstacle – a lawmaker who was once a member of…
Climate Change: Congress Needs to Act Now
Federal regulations have been a crucial part of U.S. efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions over the last 30 years. But such regulations are increasingly subject to reversal by Republican presidents…
Holy Shit, Democrats Might Actually Pass a Climate Change Bill
So maybe we’re not just going to hurtle headlong into a fiery climate doom without the U.S. government lifting a finger to save us, after all. Senate Democrats shocked Washington D.C. and climate activists by unveiling plans for the largest…
Fears over US energy security help unlock historic $369bn climate bill
Environment experts welcome emissions reductions promised as ‘significant and unprecedented’ President Joe Biden’s original Build Back Better plan had originally earmarked $555bn but at $369bn the new bill will still be the largest…
Climate activists’ plot to make liberal politicians squirm
Jennifer Falcon, a climate and Indigenous rights organizer in San Antonio, Texas, worries constantly about the impacts of climate change on her community, such as water restrictions and a possible collapse of the electric grid…
Democrats: Don’t just declare a climate emergency — make clean energy a winning campaign issue
The decision by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to walk away from more than a year of negotiations over a landmark clean energy legislation is a bitter pill for President Biden and other Democrats who made passing effective…
Dems stare into climate abyss
Democrats have had a week to digest the demise of their climate bill. They’re facing the prospect of yet another decade of congressional inaction at a time when consequences of global warming are growing more…
RADIO: BBC Climate Change Legislation
Starting at minute 31:23 Paul Bledsoe discusses what it will take to cut emissions in the US…
Why Biden’s climate agenda has faltered
President Joe Biden ran for office on a pledge to tackle the global climate crisis. Instead, he has seen his legislative ambitions defeated by Congress, the Supreme Court has delivered a hammer blow to the federal government’s ability to regulate greenhouse…
Here’s what could happen if Biden declares a climate emergency
Climate change, as many activists and politicians say, is an emergency. President Biden may soon make that official. Biden is weighing declaring a national climate emergency, an extraordinary move that would allow the president to tap…
Gridlock in Washington imperils the US Paris climate targets
Commitments to reduce emissions in jeopardy after senator Joe Manchin scuppers crucial legislation West Virginia senator Joe Manchin refused to back nearly $300bn in tax incentives for clean energy as part of a flagship bill this summer…
‘A modern-day villain’: Joe Manchin condemned for killing US climate action
Joe Manchin’s decision to kill off sweeping US climate legislation has been called “nothing short of a death sentence” for younger people and a livable climate on Earth, amid an outpouring of anger and despair from activists, scientists and even…
How One Senator Doomed the Democrats’ Climate Plan
First, he killed a plan that would have forced power plants to clean up their climate-warming pollution. Then, he shattered an effort to help consumers pay for electric vehicles. And, finally, he said he could not support government incentives for solar and…
As UK conservatives dump Johnson, most in GOP still embrace Trump’s far graver threat
Winston Churchill, the figure embattled UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claims as his role model, once defined a politician as someone who “is asked to stand, wants to sit, and is expected to lie.” Yet in the end, Johnson’s…
The climate clock is ticking for Dems
Last week’s Supreme Court defeat for the Biden administration has progressives pushing for Congress to take back the initiative on climate change — and pass laws that would stand the test of time…
Democrats in Congress, not courts or GOP, must address climate — a good bill is waiting
The Supreme Court decision this week to restrict federal regulatory authority over carbon dioxide emissions from power plants should provide Democrats in Congress the last impetus they need to finally act on comprehensive climate change legislation. And…
How millions of lives can be saved if the US acts now on climate
The rapidly shrinking window of opportunity for the US to pass significant climate legislation will have mortal, as well as political, stakes. Millions of lives around the world will be saved, or lost, depending on whether America manages to propel itself…
Methane leak at Russian mine could be largest ever discovered
Possibly the world’s biggest leak of methane has been discovered coming from a coal mine in Russia, which has been pouring out the carbon dioxide equivalent of five coal-fired power stations. About 90 tones an hour of methane were being…
Rising Seas Imperil US Sites, Military Bases Worth $387 Billion
Rising tides and powerful storms turbocharged by climate change are poised to hobble federal facilities worth at least $387 billion in coming decades, disrupting everything from veterans’ medical care to…
Biden is tight with the head of GM. Could it affect the strike?
General Motors CEO Mary Barra has visited the White House eight times since Joe Biden became president. She’s led the auto industry in embracing his electric vehicle agenda. The president has spent years cultivating a…
Team Biden goes all in at New York climate week
President Joe Biden promised to use the whole federal government to tackle climate change, and he’s sending his climate hotshots to New York City this week in a bid to prove he’s following through…
IN BOTH U.S. AND UK, OVERTAXING VOTERS IS BAD CLIMATE POLITICS
No political comparison is as discordant to British ears as one suggesting commonality with the American scene, particularly with Donald Trump still at large. Nonetheless, recent UK contretemps over energy taxes and climate…
One climate disaster after another’: North America’s long hot summer
Thousands of people are scrambling to evacuate the northern Canadian city of Yellowknife as flames from another blaze in the country’s record-breaking wildfire season bear down on people’s homes, threatening North America’s second fire disaster in…
Gas Is a Better Option Than Coal on Our Path to Draw Down Emissions
As the climate crisis worsens, the debate over emissions from natural gas is heating up, too. Unfortunately, both gas opponents and gas supporters have been cherry-picking the data, especially regarding the lifecycle emissions of…
Energy permitting is broken: New analytics can fix it
The energy permitting reforms included in the recent bipartisan budget agreement represented modest progress — but they didn’t fix the problem. The main challenge, and the huge economic opportunity, is the…
Billionaire investor threatens to pull out of UK amid global outcry at new oil rush
A billionaire global investor has led international condemnation of the UK’s new oil rush, saying he would pull his major investment from the country if the prime minister pursued “clickbait” fossil fuel policies…
How can UK political parties win support for a bold green agenda?
The most important thing is to make clear that action on climate change will materially improve people’s lives. Insulation can mean warmer homes in winter, cooler homes in summer. Better air quality, greener cities…
Sleepwalking Toward Climate Catastrophe
The last few weeks have brought unprecedented high temperatures in the U.S. and globally, including the four hottest days in a row worldwide ever in recorded history…
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